All season the NIU women’s basketball team’s main goal was to get to Cleveland.

The Huskies had their chance to make it happen, but fell 76-61 Saturday at Toledo in the first round of the MAC tournament.

The loss marked the third-straight year the Huskies lost in the first round of the tournament.

“It’s extremely frustrating especially for our three seniors,” said NIU coach Carol Hammerle of Rachel Sillar, Alyssa Verdegan and Jamie Wilson, who is expected to forgo her final season of eligibility because of injuries. “All season we wanted to get to Cleveland, but it just didn’t happen.”

The Huskies (7-21 overall, 4-13 MAC) led for much of the first half, but weren’t ready for a barrage of Toledo free throws.

During a 4:26 run that spanned the end of the first half and beginning of the second, the Rockets (14-14, 10-7) scored 14 straight points from the free-throw line.

The Rockets went 18-for-20 from the line in the first half alone, compared to the Huskies 16 attempts for the entire game.

“We did some good things in the first half,” Hammerle said. “But then they started getting to the free-throw line, and those were a lot of points we couldn’t defend.”

The Rockets started the second half on a 19-6 run, with nine of the points coming from sophomore guard Danielle Bishop.

With 2:57 remaining, senior Karin Hoogendam hit a jumper to give Toledo its biggest lead of the game at 18 and seal the fate of NIU.

“She struggled in the first two games against us,” Hammerle said of Hoogendam, who tied for a game-high 16 points to go with 15 rebounds. “She knew she needed to do something extra and you have to credit her effort.”

Sophomore guard Stephanie Raymond led the Huskies with 15 points while fellow sophomore Kristin Wiener chipped in with 13.